Eleanor's Family Tree:Information about Richard Bland II
Richard Bland II (b. May 06, 1710, d. October 28, 1776)
Notes for Richard Bland II:
Richard Bland, son of Richard Bland of "Jordan's Pint," Prince George county and Elizabeth Randolph, was orphaned at 9 and raised by uncles William and Richard Randolph.He was educated at William and Mary College and at the University of Edinburgh (6 Characters says no record evidence of this).His first wife, Anne Poythress, was the mother of all of his 12 children [6 Characters, p. 156.]
He was a vestryman at Martin's Brandon and a Justice of the Peace in Prince George County.For more than 30 years, after 1748 was a leading member of the house of burgesses.In 1753 he condemned Governor Dinwiddie's attempt to impose a pistole for land grants as taxation without the people's assent, and in 1757 was the author and champion of the Two Penny Act, which, in claiming for Virginians the right of controlling their own taxation, was the great preliminary step to the formal measures of the American revolution.In 1764 he wrote a pamphlet defensive of his cause entitled "the Colonels Dismounted," in which he asserted the exclusive authority of the general assembly of Virginia over all matters of domestic concern.When the Stamp Act was proposed the same year, he opposed it with great zeal upon the floor of the house of burgesses and was one of the committee of nine which, in December, 1764, prepared the memorials to King, lords and commons.He, nevertheless, opposed the resolutions of Patrick Henry in May, 1765, on the ground that the British government had not been given sufficient time to respond to the previous protest.[Virginia Biography, Vol II, p. 4].
In 1766, he showed, however, that his oppositon to the British scheme of taxation was not diminished by publishing his pamphlet entitled an "Enquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies."In this he emphasized the views expressed in his "Colonels Dismounted," taking the ground that Virginia was an independent kingdom, under no subjection to parliament, and only connected with England by the tie of the Crown.The doctrine thus advanced was considered a "prodigious innovation" in most parts of the country, though in course of time the patriots came very generally to rest their cause upon it.His knowledge of history exhibited in the pamphlet gained for him the appellation of "The Virginia Antiquary."[Ibid.]
After the repeal of the Stamp Act, Bland took equally strong grounds against the Revenue Act of 1767.He was chairman of the committee of the whole house which reported the resolutions of April 7, 1768, protesting against the act; and when the government of Great Britain demanded the arrest of the patriots of Massachusetts he was one of the leading spirits of the legislature in bringing about the adoption of the protest of May 8, 1769, and was the first person to sign the non-importation agreement entered into at that time.Although new leaders after this sprang to the front, in the persons of Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, Bland continued an able support of the cause of American liberty.In 1773 he was appointed one of the committee of correspondence, and in August, 1774, he was appointed a delegate to the first Congress which met at Philadelphia, and was reelected till August, 1775, when he declined.He was a member of the Virginia convention of March, 1775, and on the organization of the committee of safety, in July, 1775, he was appointed one of its members.In December of that year he was a member of the convention which sat at Richmond, and in May, 1776, he was a member of the convention which declared for independence and adopted the first state constitution.Thus he held continued public service throughout the whole revolutionary period--from the Two Penny Act to the Declaration of Indepencence.(Op. cit., pp. 4, 5].
Richard was an influential member of the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia, 1774-1775, a delegate from Virginia.The other Virginia delegates were the Hon. Peyton Randolph, Esq., Richard Henry Lee, George Washington,Patrick Henry, Jr. and Benjamin Harrison and Edmund Pendleton, Esqs. (From Historic Virginia Homes and Churches.]He was also a member of the Committee of Safety [Family Chronicle and Kinship Book].
Richard Bland married his second wife on Jan. 1, 1759.
More About Richard Bland II and Anne Poythress:
Marriage: March 21, 1728/29, Jordan, Virginia.
More About Richard Bland II and Martha Macon:
Marriage: January 01, 1759
Children of Richard Bland II and Anne Poythress are:
- Peter Bland, d. date unknown.
- Edward Bland, d. date unknown.
- Annie Bland, b. August 15, 1735, Jordan's Point, Virginia, d. date unknown.
- +Richard Bland III, b. 1745, Jordan's Point, Williamsburg, Virginia, d. date unknown.